


Running

by ashleyfanfic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dramione remix round 5, F/M, Remix of Beth Greene and Daryl Dixon from the Walking Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 20:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12328050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashleyfanfic/pseuds/ashleyfanfic
Summary: They only want to find a place to be...





	Running

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: To be honest, I was and still am a Carol/Daryl Shipper. They are my OTP from the Walking Dead. But, something about the episodes we got that were devoted to Beth and Daryl made me take a look at them in a new light.
> 
> Original Couple Notes: Beth Greene was the daughter of Hershel Green, a veterinarian that the original survivor group ran across after Carl, one of the children in their group, was shot by Otis, the farm caretaker. At first, Beth was a whiny teenager who tried to take her life, whether it was for attention or actually wanting to die, we don’t know, but she did slit her wrists and then apologized for what she did. Daryl was the hunter in the group. He was a tracker, knew how to survive on his own, and had a shady past with his brother Merle. Throughout the seasons, he’s proven to be a valued member of the group, becoming the second hand to Rick’s leader. Everyone trusts him, he’s a smartass, but he’s extremely loyal. In the 4th season of the Walking Dead, Rick’s group, including Beth, Daryl, and Beth’s father, Hershel, had all taken refuge at a prison they had cleared out and set up home. They were overtaken by The Governor who decapitated Hershel in front of the group when they refused to give up the prison, the blow was felt by everyone. Hershel was the moral compass and his loss was like losing a father. Daryl and Beth ended up being separated from everyone else in the group and had to rely on everyone else. Beth wasn’t one of the fighters, instead she stayed behind and most times watched the baby, Judith. Some of this is actually taken from conversations that Beth and Daryl had and some of it is remixed. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Author’s Note 2: I will not refer to them as zombies, but as Walkers (as that’s how they are referred to on the show)

Running. It’s all we ever seem to do anymore. Ever since it all happened it’s like a non-stop cardio workout, where you should get a break. But there’s never a break. Never a lull in the danger that is around every corner. We’re being hunted like animals. Our group, lone survivors from Hogwarts, a place we thought would be a safe haven, was demolished in no time by people bent on destruction.  
  
We got separated. I know she’d rather be with anyone but me. Never has our relationship ever been one where we got along. In fact, we’ve been enemies for as long as we can remember. But this outbreak, this disease, or whatever it is, it makes the strangest allies.  
  
My job at the camp wasn’t to protect anyone. I’ve been a coward, out for self-preservation for as long as I can remember. . But now, all of our lives depend on me putting selfishness aside; we have to work together to fight these things off. For the first time in my life, I’m thinking of someone other than myself. Our wands are mostly useless, and it took more than one battle to figure that out. In fact, they seem to be attracted to magic, able to see it in a way that we cannot. I’ve killed a few out of necessity, learning early on that the brain was what needed to die. But I don’t like the killing. In fact, I hate it. I’ve never been one who could stomach death. I was forced around it in my youth, a time which changed me irrevocably. Death is permanent, final. And these reanimated corpses remind me that death comes for us all, but even then we might not find the peace that should come with the long sleep. In this case, we life we die and become killers or we live long enough to do the killing. There are times when I want it all to be over, where I long to just be out of this entire situation. But I fear becoming a monster. I’ve been running from it for a long time, now.  
  
She’s made a camp. At least we have one for a while. Not sure how long she’ll think it’s safe to stay here. I’m relying on her instincts. She’s a fighter, a survivor, and smarter than anyone ever gave her credit. She’s been tracking the way she thinks her other friends had gone, but I think she’s lost their trail and she just hasn’t told me yet. I think she’s almost afraid to.  
  
She told me that we were in the Forest of Dean. Something about the way she said it made me realize that it held both good and bad memories for her. She’s not much for conversation these days, not since we lost her friends. Not since Hogwarts fell completely.  
  
We joined the group a while ago, my mother and I, when our Manor and grounds became overrun. We’d gone to Hogwarts, knowing that if anywhere was safe from the living dead, it would be the formidable school. It took some convincing on Potter’s part to the rest of the group to trust us. Not really us. My mother. Apparently, saving the Chosen One’s life isn’t as easily forgotten as some would think. And when my mother joined the group, it was revealed to them all that she had great skill with Healing spells. She’d learned during the last war, that they were a necessity. She’d ingratiated herself with everyone, especially Potter, and proved her usefulness. She’d been teaching me, but I must admit that my interest wasn’t in it. But she was adamant about me becoming useful and helping those who had so graciously taken us in.  
  
I lost my mother. It seemed to be a loss that everyone suffered with me, and one in which Hermione won’t talk about at all.  
  
But we hadn’t expected that they would grab her and use her against us. We knew that the Death Eaters were still in full force. They’d been trying for a long time to take Hogwarts, and after one such battle where they managed to deal heavy blows to the castle, they were overrun and it was quiet for months.  
  
Walden McNair, however, was not one who would simply give up, though. He was still out there, apparently watching us the entire time. He’d learned how we operated, our schedules, how we traveled in groups and learned to clear buildings. He knew his enemy when we never considered that there could still be one lurking outside the magic gates. They had to have Hogwarts. Logically, it was the only safe haven, still hidden away from the world of the dead. The elves were gone, going wherever it is that elves go when they can’t be found, which lead us into needing to go on food and supply runs. My mother and her protector at the time, Blaise, had been out in the forest, looking for some herbs to be used in healing salves when Walden and his group grabbed them.  
  
McNair was always an evil bastard. He was sadistic actually. This new world order had made him even more vicious. When he’d arrived at the gate, demanding that we all disperse, he had an actual head hanging from the rope tied about his waist. He was a danger and Potter had made a valiant effort to try to get him to release them both. But he wouldn’t do so unless we relinquished the castle. My mother actually smiled when Potter suggested that we could all live together and stay out of one another’s way. I knew that was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard.  
  
It was a lie. I knew it. Potter knew it. Worst of all, McNair knew it. When I close my eyes, I always see her smiling face right before the sword sliced into her neck. Everything was a blur after that. I wanted everyone to suffer, everyone to pay. No one could ever know my loss. No one could ever understand what I felt. I was angry. I’m still angry. I want the world to pay for taking away such a positive force. When the world went to Hell, my mother was a beacon of light. I love her. She was my protector, my advocate, my life. And to see her brutalized in such a way causes a rage I don’t know how to process other than I want to kill everything in my path. But I hate killing.  
  
I hate this world.  
  
My partner, Hermione Granger, is the only reason I’m alive. She found me in the main courtyard and convinced me to leave. Our destination, according to her, is to find the remaining members of our group, which at this point, we have no idea who that could be. I hate the way she looks at me.  
  
She’s sitting, silently staring into the fire. For a woman who used to talk all the time, her silence is worse. In fact, I miss the days when we would hurl insults at one another, as if the stuff we disliked about one another actually mattered.  
  
I only realize I’m staring at her when she looks up at me and narrows her eyes. “What?”  
  
Do I even what to tell her what I’m really thinking? That we’re both dead? Maybe not her, not yet, but there’s no way we’ll survive this? Is that even worth saying?  
  
I realize that it is not. It’s in no way productive. Instead, I ask, “How far behind them do you think we are?”  
  
It’s a valid question. How much further do we have to travel until we come across some sort of civilization again? Until there is a buffer between the two of us?  
  
Her silence makes me nervous and she then hangs her head and sighs. “We’ve stopped here because  _here_  is where I lost their trail.” Her voice is soft, weary, and full of resignation. She’s come to the same realization that I have. It’s the two of us, which doesn’t bode well for our future. We’ve never managed to work well together. We’re diametrically different. She’s a fighter. I run from a fight. I put my head in my hands and rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, and am accosted with once more watching my mother beheaded. I lift my head and open my eyes to find her staring at me and I’m not sure if it’s disdain or disinterest, but she hates I’m stuck with her and not someone more useful. She finally uses her foot and brushes out the fire and lays back on her pack. “Get some sleep. We’re going South in the morning.”  
  
I want to ask  _why south_ , but I don’t want it to start a fight. I’m tired of fighting. I hate sleeping out in the open like this, too. We’ve set up string with tin cans around where we are to alert us to sound, but it doesn’t comfort me. Hogwarts made me compliant. It made all of us compliant. It was our complacency that made taking us, taking Hogwarts so easy. We never thought we could be driven out. We never thought it could be taken from us.  
  
We were wrong.  
  
*~*  
  
The knife in my hand feels heavy as I follow behind her. She’s got a crossbow, and where she found a crossbow I have no idea, and is moving through the forest. The faint gurgle of walkers can be heard, but it’s almost a constant sound these days. Like the birds chirping in the air, the laborious breathing of the dead forms sound around us. They aren’t close; as far as I can tell, but she’s ready should we come upon them. She stops for a moment and I catch up to her and notice a bit of blood on a nearby leaf and she frowns.  
  
“It’s fresh.” She looks around a little more and stoops to the ground and that’s when I see the footprint freshly made in the mud. It looks to be a child. She looks up at me and I can tell what she’s thinking without her having to say a word.  
  
“They could still be alive,” she stands up once more and walks a few feet away and points out to some branches being broken at arm level.  
  
“Whoever came through here did it in a hurry.”  
  
I feel I should know how she’s doing this. “How can you tell?”  
  
She looks at me a moment and then explains. “The person is already bleeding and then they took off in a hurry. Notice the breaks go in the same direction and the impact of the prints is heavier towards the toes than the heel.” She turned to look at him, holding the crossbow with the arrow pointing towards the air. “You’re taking an interest in tracking?”  
  
I notice her interest and the fact that she’s actually speaking to me and not grunting at me as if she was some Neanderthal. “After the last debacle, I think it might be a handy skill to have,” I say, hoping that she doesn’t take what I say with any sort of malice.  
  
She tucked a curl that had come from her ponytail behind her ear and nodded. “They went this way,” she said as she continued to follow the footprints until we reached the rail lines. I realize where we are and it brings a little comfort to know that we’re not far from Dufftown. I hear an arrow fly off the cross bow and turn to see that she’s just taken out one of three walkers that are currently eating what looks to be children. She’s dropped the bow and now has her axe in her hand and takes out the one that’s started to come after her as I deal the killing blow to the one who hadn’t stopped his meal.  
  
I know the two children and the one adult that was with them. They’d been at Hogwarts with us. I’m so sick of seeing death that the idle thought passes that I could opt out and just be done with it all. I hear a sniffle from behind me and turn to see that she’s crying. I’ll admit that I hate it when women cry. Especially this one and especially now. She’s not allowed to cry. She’s supposed to be the strong one of the two of us. She’s the warrior.  
  
But I realize her tears are necessary. A part of the grieving process because for all we know, this is the fate that befell all of our friends and comrades. And it’s a sentiment I want to express more than I can say, but I can’t put it into words or let the tears fall, for I fear if they do, they’ll never stop.  
  
*~*  
  
It’s a small farm house in the middle of nowhere. Dufftown was overrun, and so we got out of there as fast as we possibly could, and I’m not sure how far from the town we are exactly, I just know that if we don’t get some water and food soon, I’m not going to be able to go much further. She walks up onto the steps and holds a finger up to me. My knife is in my hand as she bangs on the door and we wait. It’s a process that she and Potter had come up with to clear somewhere. It’s effective. After a few moments, there is no shuffling from inside and so she tries the handle of the door and it opens. Ever vigilant, she holds the bow up, ready to take down the first sign of movement.  
  
We clear each room, and when the house is free of Walkers, we push the sofa against the door and move a large armoire against the back door. I search through the kitchen and manage to find a jar of fruit preserves and what looks to be beef jerky. After a brief smell test, I realize that it is jerky, and as she sits on the sofa and examines the site of her bow, I open the jar of preserves and hand her a spoon and a few pieces of the jerky.  
  
She accepts the spoon and finally puts the bow down. I put my feet on the coffee table and cross my legs at the ankle on the very lumpy sofa we’re currently seated on. “I wish we had some booze,” she says finally.  
  
I look over at her at the odd request and frown. “You don’t strike me as much of a drinker.”  
  
She shakes her head. “I’m not. I was never able to hold my liquor at all. Harry always called me a lightweight,” she says with a ghost of a smile.  
  
I could see that about her. “It’s just not for some people.”  
  
“What about you? Are you a lightweight?”  
  
I pause with the preserves half-way to my mouth, amazed that we’re actually having a conversation. I then shrug. “In Slytherin we had alcohol quite often.”  
  
“For what purpose? Celebration?”  
  
I smile then. “If you call Saturday a celebration,” I answer. “We didn’t really need a reason. It was just something we did.”  
  
“How did you manage to get it into the castle?” she asked as she examined the jerky.  
  
I shrug. “Snape was our Head of House. We got hassled enough by the other houses that I think he just let us have that vice. We never let anyone under fourth year have any, as they couldn’t keep a secret to save their lives, but the older students knew that it was an unspoken rule we did it and we didn’t talk about it with anyone else.”  
  
I could feel her staring at me and when I turned to face her, her expression was incredulous. “You were  _hassled_  by other houses? When was Slytherin ever  _hassled_?”  
  
I couldn’t understand her source of the anger. Did she not believe what I was saying or was it simply that she thought that it was a complete fabrication? “Quite often,” I said as I ate a bit of the preserves. “Ravenclaws were the worst,” I answered before digging through my sack looking for the last bottle of water we had.  
  
“Slytherin was the house that caused everyone’s pain.”  
  
That stopped me. I sat up slowly and turned to face her. “You’re wrong. We were belittled by several people in different houses, but Ravenclaws often got more jibes in than others. Gryffindors weren’t smarter than us, but you were considered to have more courage. Hufflepuffs more heart. Ravenclaws were the brains. But we were seen as evil from the beginning. That’s just all there was to it. And we suffered for it. It’s why we were so protective of our own.”  
  
“Nothing to do with blood purity?” Her tone was full of hate and resentment.  
  
I couldn’t help but sneer at her. “That is what you would think, isn’t it? I disliked you, mostly because of your mouth, but I was out to prove myself better than you. Forgive me if I used that against you. But the truth of the matter was that I was tired of being bested by you. And in the end, if they were Slytherin, they were family. I would have fought for any of my housemates just as they would have done for me. When everyone thinks you’re evil, sometimes you need people to tell you that you aren’t,” I say before I stand and leave the room.  
  
I’m not sure how long I’m gone, but when I reenter, I find her hanging some blankets from the windows, trying to block out the outside world. We both hear it at the same time and my knife is in my hand as I reached the window first. Thankfully, it’s only one and he’s seen better days. His jaw seems to be hanging by only one hinge, his clothes ripped to pieces and it’s easy to see where his original bite manifested from as there is a large, festered bite on his shoulder. He bumps against the house a few times and I look around to see there are anymore, which, thankfully, there aren’t.  
  
“Do you think we should take care of it?” I ask, trying to break the eerie silence that has filled the room.  
  
She sets her crossbow on the floor beside the window and shakes her head. “Not yet. Only if he starts making too much noise,” she says before she moves to the other window and I stand and stare at the dead man reaching for me.  
  
When everything first turned to hell, I used to feel a kind of fear that no one could actually put into words. It was terror at its purest. But now, it’s almost more effort to kill one than it’s worth. I wonder if Hermione feels the same about it as I do.  
  
“Are you going to stand there and stare at it all day?”  
  
I look up at her and frown. “What else would you have me do?”  
  
She shrugged and then moved into the kitchen and went through the cabinets more thoroughly. “Ah ha!” she exclaimed as she pulled a bottle from the back of one of the lower cabinets. It was a bottle of Ogden’s which made me realize that this was a wizarding house. She grabbed two glasses and placed them on the kitchen table, righting one of the chairs and sitting down. She poured a little in each glass and pushed one across the table, and I didn’t know if it was a peace offering or what, but I needed a drink about now.  
  
I crossed the room and took the offered glass and sat across from her as she downed the drink and winced and coughed in response. I was much smarter about it and took a drink slowly. I wasn’t used to alcohol any longer and I certainly didn’t have enough food in my stomach to keep myself from getting shit faced quickly. Maybe it’s what we both deserved. By all accounts, we were the only ones to survive, and that thought alone was enough to make me nearly vomit all the preserves we’d eaten as well as the swallow of Ogden’s.  
  
*~*  
  
“What’s the point of this game?” Hermione asked, her smile almost infectious. She was far too friendly a drunk and I understand, now, why Potter and Weasley seemingly kept her away from the stuff.  
  
“You name something you’ve never done and if the other person has done it they drink,” I answer. I’ve played this game numerous times with other Slytherins. Pansy, Blaise, Tracey, Daphne and Theo were always up for a game. It usually ended up with snogging or shagging one of the girls and they were fine with that. But playing with Granger could be an interesting development.  
  
“I’ve never shot a crossbow,” I retorted.  
  
She sipped at her drink and leaned her head on her hand. “Hmmm, I’ve never played Quidditch.”  
  
I roll my eyes at how boring Granger was managing to make this game. I sip my drink anyway and decide to up the ante. “I’ve never shagged in Gryffindor tower.”  
  
Hermione didn’t drink, only raised an eyebrow at me. “Really? Never? Don’t tell me you were a virgin when you left Hogwarts.”  
  
“Just because I didn’t shag in my tower didn’t mean I was a virgin.”  
  
I smirked. “Were you?”  
  
“I’m not answering that question.” At that, I took a drink as I’d lost.  
  
“Fine,” I acquiesce. “It’s your turn.”  
  
“I never got a tattoo.”  
  
I drink to that one. The mark on my left forearm was burned into the skin, but it is the wizarding equivalent of a tattoo. “I’ve never shagged one of my best friends.”  
  
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Is that what you think of me? And why are all of your questions about shagging?”  
  
I raised an eyebrow at her. “I assumed that...”  
  
“Right, you assumed. Drink,” she said as she stood and walked away from the table and leaned against the counter.  
  
I watched her as she took several deep breaths, obviously trying to steady herself. She turned and faced him then. “I’ve never lived in a manor! I’ve never put more value in what someone could offer me than what the person was actually worth!” she shouted.  
  
I could hear the walker outside getting riled up at the sound and I scowled. “Granger, quiet down!” I hissed.  
  
She crossed the room, grabbed her bow, and started for the door, kicking it out of the way enough for her to open the door. “Why? Let’s go see our little friend,” she said, swaying slightly as she walked outside.  
  
I followed her outside quickly, my knife in my hand and watched her take an arrow and pin the dead sap to a tree. “You want to shoot a crossbow? Now’s your chance,” she said as she thrust the weapon into my hands and forced me to fire an arrow, which hit the dead man into the other shoulder.  
  
“Granger, knock it off!” I said, trying to shove her away from me, but she was persistent and loaded it with another arrow.  
  
“Come on! Try again! Be useful,” she said shoving it into my hands again and aiming only to hit it in the face, but not enough to kill the brain. “All out of arrows. Let’s pull out a few and give it some more practice,” she said as she started to walk to it. Instead, I felt such a fury at her I couldn’t even put it into words. I got to him first and planted my knife into its brain, ending its endless misery.  
  
She shoved me then. “What did you do that for? We were having fun!”  
  
“No, that’s not fun! Killing them isn’t supposed to be fun!”  
  
“What the hell do you know about anything?!”  
I’ve had it with her attitude. I’m tired of it. “I know when you look at me, you see another dead man!”  
  
She took a step back and frowned. “Is that what you think?”  
  
I put my finger in her face. “It’s what I know. I’m not Potter, or Weasley, or even Blaise. I’m the coward who only survives because he runs and it makes you pity me because you know I’m going to die.”  
  
She shoved me again. “You don’t know anything!” she turned and put her back to me and I knew she was crying again, but unlike last time, these are tears of anger. “This is all my fault. I knew there was a threat out there. We shouldn’t have stopped looking. Had Blaise and I kept looking...”  
  
And now I feel like shit. She’s been blaming herself for everything that happened. “He came right up to our gate...and your mum...” she shook her head. “I could have stopped him!” she said and I couldn’t do anything but wrap my arms around her from behind and rested my head against the back of hers. She rested some of her weight against me and for the first time we took comfort in one another. Her hands clutch mine where they are wrapped around her waist. I feel the tears in my eyes, but I push them aside, unwilling to cry even through everything. I can’t.  
  
I simply can’t.  
  
*~*  
  
Back in the living room, we’re seated at the table again, but this time the alcohol is missing. I’m unsure, really, what she did with it, and the way my stomach is turning, I don’t really care.  
  
“We were all kidding ourselves,” I say finally. It’s a truth that one of us has to admit. “We were too comfortable. Too at home. This world isn’t meant for that. Peace just...isn’t something we can have,” I finish, realizing how hopeless I sound and I don’t even care.  
  
She’s got her feet propped on one of the other chairs and the look on her face is sad. I hate it. I remember the smile she had on her face not long ago, and I would give nearly anything to see it again. “Maybe.”  
  
“Still unconvinced?” I ask, truly wondering how she could have hope in such a dire situation. “Truth is, it won’t be long until something else happens. Everywhere we turn, we find danger, death mocking us. It won’t be long until I’m gone,” I say but I’m interrupted by her.  
  
“You’re a horrible drunk,” she says but turns to look out the window at the darkened sky.  
  
“You know it as well as I do.”  
  
She shakes her head and frowns. “You know what, Draco Malfoy, you vastly underestimate your usefulness,” she sighs and leans her head back. “You always valued the wrong things. Things that didn’t matter. Money, blood status. Never the ability of someone.”  
  
I folded my arms over my chest, extremely skeptical about where this was going. “And what should I have valued. Should I have known that you would be handy in such a time as this?”  
  
“Yes,” she answered with a smile. “I’m good at everything. Surviving is just one more thing,” she finished with a sigh. I laugh at that and it feels good to even do so, and it causes her to laugh as well. We both grow silent again and she tilts her head at me. “You may surprise yourself, Malfoy.”  
  
I shrug. “It means something that you think so,” I admit.  
  
She eyes me for a moment and sighs. “You’re a fighter, whether you realize it or not. You may not like it, hell, none of us like it, but at this point what choice do we have? We fight or we die. And you’ve survived this long. Maybe there’s a reason.”  
  
“There is no reason,” I say finally. “For any of this. It’s illogical. The dead rising from the grave, killing people, death everywhere we look. None of this is logical,” I say softly. “You getting stuck with me isn’t logical.”  
  
She shrugged. “Maybe not. But it happened.” She folded her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair a bit. “It could be worse.”  
  
“How’s that?” I ask, clearly not seeing how it could be worse than having a woman who essentially dislikes me being my ultimate protector. Or worse. Actually needing a protector in the first place.  
  
“We could be totally alone,” she says as she looks at me. “That would be worse. At least this way we have someone to see the end with.”  
  
I roll my eyes. “I repeat, you’re a terrible drunk.”  
  
She laughs and kicks me. “And you’re not much better.”  
  
I take a deep breath and fold my hands beneath my head. “Let’s get some sleep. We should see if we can find some more houses and make a better run.”  
  
*~*  
  
The last two houses we rifled through had proven to have a few useful things. The first being a knife sharpener and a handgun hidden away in one of the upstairs bedrooms. I also found a box of ammo. Hermione had tucked it into her bag as it was light weight and the heavier things were going into my bag. It was only fair. I was able to carry more than she was. The bow restricted her movement too much.  
  
We hear the familiar gurgling and hacking of a Walker, and it sounds like it’s ahead of us. We move slowly, not wanting to make any sound as we approach, Hermione on point and I’m circling behind her. I stop her when I see that it has a gun. “Look. Gun,” I whisper into her ear and she steps forward only to let out a yelp and hits the ground quickly.  
  
The Walker has dropped the food it was eating and has decided to come for fresh meat. I take it out with my knife and dash away the ephemera and then turn back to Hermione to see that her dragon boot was caught in what seemed to be a bear trap. I manage to pry it open and allow her to pull her foot loose. The trap didn’t puncture through the hide of the boot, but she still seems to be favoring it.  
  
“Can you walk?” I extend a hand and help her up and watch as she put pressure on it only for her to limp.  
  
“Not really,” she said as I go to retrieve the gun from the Walker and examine the clip to see that it was only fired once. I go through the rest of the body and find another hunting knife and a full clip in one of his pockets. I turn back to see her placing the crossbow back around her shoulder.  
  
“Let’s go,” she says finally and once again takes point, limping as she does so. I realize that if we have to run, there’s going to be a problem. After about twenty minutes of walking, we both stop as we come to a clearing and find another farm house. She stops me and sits on the ground, rubbing her ankle as she does so. When she stands I heave a sigh. “How far away would you say that house is?”  
  
She shrugged. “I don’t know. A hundred meters? Why?”  
  
I reach out and take her crossbow from her, take the bag from my back and put it on her shoulders and then turn to put my back to her. “Hop on.”  
  
I can’t see her face, but I can hear her scoff and feel the weight of the crossbow as it hits the top of my thighs. How she manages to lift this thing and fire it accurately is beyond me, but I’m tired of waiting for her to comply. “Are you serious?” she finally asks.  
  
“I think we can make it there without much of an incident,” I say to her and this time I hear her shuffle towards me and then feel her weight on my back and I grasp her thighs and lift her higher. I feel her hands on my shoulder and I realize how tense she is as the weight is causing it to be hard to hold her. “Relax Granger. Stiffening up makes it harder to hold you,” I say and feel her relax a bit. It’s not long before we’re walking through a graveyard and the headstones are all worn, making the engravings hard to read. However, I do see one and it causes me to stop and I set her down on her feet as I lean back against the headstone behind me and look at the engraving.  
  
_Beloved Mother_  
  
Hermione steps forward and places wildflowers she’d picked on top of the stone and then comes back to stand beside me. When she reaches for my hand, I’m a little surprised, but I curl my fingers with hers and we both take the moment to actually remember how much we’ve lost in the last few days. My mother being one of the hardest to lose.  
  
She leans her head against my shoulder and I glance down at her brown hair which is pulled back into a ponytail. She always wears it that way, now. It’s never left down to be the curls she had become notorious for. I release her hand and then turn my back to her once more, indicating that I was ready to go.  
  
Once more situated on my back, I started making our way to the small farm house and up to the steps. My movements were slow, carrying not only her weight, but the weight of my bag and her crossbow. When we got to the top step I set her on her feet and banged on the front door, waiting to hear if there was any shuffling coming from inside. After a few moments of silence, I tried the knob and the door opened. She moved in front of me, her bow raised. But I grabbed her arm, holding her back. Injured, she still had to be in charge. Truth was, if we had to run, she needed to get a head start.  
  
I looked around the house and noticed that the place was spotless. “It’s clean,” I say finally.  
  
She moved over to a bookshelf that had some small knick knacks on it and I examined a parlor. “Someone’s been taking care of it,” she says finally.  
  
I turn to her and feel an uneasiness inside that I can’t put into words. “We should leave.”  
  
“Let’s see what’s here, first,” she insists and walks away from me. I roll my eyes and follow her, my knife in one hand and the gun we’d found in the other. Thankfully we’d been taught how to fire the things as they had proven truly effective against the Walkers. I wasn’t the best shot, but I could kill the damn things if they were close enough. For our sakes, I hope they weren’t that close ever again.  
  
We manage to find the kitchen and she begins to search through the cupboards for things that could prove useful. I went through the drawers and manage to find a can opener, which I quickly stash into my pocket when I hear her exclaim. “I was right. This is someone’s stash.” I look over at her to see that she found the shelves stocked with cans of hash, some assorted vegetables and preserves, and a few cases of cola. Finnegan would have been thrilled as he always talked about he just wanted cola one more time and every run he was hopeful they would find some. But they never did. Not before he died.  
  
“Let’s just take a few things and then leave, like you said,” she said as she pulled a few things from the shelves and stuffed them into my pack. Carrying it was going to be hell, but anything at this point to survive. I caught her hands and stopped her. I then directed her to a chair and pushed her to sit down. I was fully capable of loading up a bag. And so, she was silent for a few minutes as I searched through the cabinet and adjoining pantry to find food that we could take. When I entered the room again, she had a pen and piece of paper in her hand and was writing something.  
  
“What are you writing?” I ask, as I check all the drawers once more, taking a few knives and a can opener I found.  
  
“A ‘thank you’ note,” she answered, not looking up at me as she continued.  
  
Is she serious? Now is not the time for polite correspondence. “Why?”  
  
She sighed and then looked up at me. “There has to be some form of…civility in this world if it’s to ever come out of this.”  
  
It’s almost endearing how she believes that there will be a way out of this. The facts are that we’ll both die eventually, probably sooner rather than later, as there are only two of us, and by this point, probably millions of walkers. I don’t care how good she is with that crossbow, but two people can’t defend the world from the current decay it has arrived.  
  
She then smiles at me and shakes her head. “You think it’s a waste of time,” it wasn’t even a question. She stated it as fact.  
  
“Yes. People don’t take kindness anymore, Granger. All that’s left is death and destruction.”  
  
She went back to what she was doing and ignored me. I might as well have not even tried. As I continue filling the bags, I realize that traveling with her on a bum foot would be stupid. I realize this house isn’t safe, and we need to move on, for sure, but we can’t go far with her ankle being injured. And I know, for a fact, she would possibly have a seizure if I mentioned using magic to heal her. However, I hope she would see the merits to what I’m going to suggest.  
  
“What about your ankle?”  
  
“What about it?” she continued writing and I roll my eyes as I realize that nothing Granger writes will ever be brief.  
  
“You can’t travel very far on the injured ankle. We’ll have to get somewhere safe and…”  
  
“What are you getting at?”  
  
I reach into my bag and remove my wand. “Let me heal it.”  
  
She looks at me wearily. “No.”  
  
“Granger…”  
  
“Malfoy, I understand what you’re saying, but magic attracts them. We can’t risk that it would call a passing herd to us.”  
  
“So, what is your suggestion? We hope that we can get somewhere to stay until your ankle is better? That could be days. And we need to keep moving to see if we can find someone…”  
  
I’m not really sure where I was going with that thought. The truth is, there aren’t people that we should trust. In fact, there are probably more dangerous people out there than we’ve already encountered. And Granger being female could pose to be very bad for her. In situations like this, people take what they want, even if it means committing an atrocious act to get it.  
  
I’m broken away from my thoughts by the sound of a dog barking. She looked at me as moved out of the kitchen and to the front door. I looked through the draperies on the side windows and see the dog. I open the door and try to lure him inside by he runs away. I feel sadness at him fleeing. It was a piece of normalcy, something familiar and encouraging that maybe something good was still left in this world.  
  
I turned and found Hermione at the entry way to the kitchen. “You shouldn’t be up walking around.”  
  
“But there was a dog.”  
  
I want to mock her to her face for her optimism, but I remember that I felt it only seconds before and to mock her disappointment now would be to make little of my own. She propped her weight on the door frame and folded her arms across her chest. “Let’s stay here tonight?”  
  
“Are you out of your mind?” I quickly questioned.  
  
“Hear me out,” she answered.  
  
I grew silent and allowed her to continue. She nodded and then moved back to the kitchen, limping as she did so. “As you said, it would be hard for me to really move efficiently right now. Let’s stay here tonight and, I will concede, that if my ankle isn’t healed by tomorrow morning, then I’ll let you heal it with magic and we can be on our way.”  
  
It was a compromise. At this point, I was exhausted and it would be nice to stay somewhere that had a little bit of security to it. And so, I dropped the bags beside the table and sat beside her. “Fine. What do we do until then?”  
  
She gave me a smile that, I must admit, made me feel better. Lighter. It gave me pause that the world was now so dark that even a smile made me relax. It wasn’t going to save the world or even our lives, but for a moment, I could believe that everything was simple again.  
  
*~*  
  
The sun is setting as I tie the string of cans to the front stoop. A safety precaution to let us know when someone or something approaches, Hermione’s idea. It reminds me of one of our first nights making camp after we lost Hogwarts. When I finish, I give a look around and notice a few walkers in the field to the west, but there appear to only be two. We learned long ago not to waste energy or expose ourselves unnecessarily. Fight them when you have to, otherwise, reserve your energy and strength.  
  
As I reenter the house, I can hear the sound of a piano coming from one of the side rooms. I find her pressing the keys softly, playing a song she seems to know by memory. There are a few candles lit and the windows have been covered with the bedclothes from the upstairs. The soft music playing in the background and the sight of her sitting there, stirs me.  
  
I realize that any sort of attachment to someone else is dangerous. We’re in a precarious situation and allowing myself to feel…anything. Emotions can be a liability. That’s always been my belief, at least. Hermione’s never been one to prescribe to that sort of thinking. But I can’t even let myself hope that she feels anything similar, at least, nothing that could cause her to care about my well being beyond that it helps her. When she stopped playing, I moved into the room and lay back on one of the sofas, kicking my feet up onto the upholstery and conform one of the pillows beneath my head. It’s the most comfortable I’ve been in a while.  
  
She turned and looked at me, pausing momentarily to stare at my boots. “Why did you stop?” I asked. I liked the music. It was soothing.  
  
“Song was done.”  
  
“Did you write it?”  
  
She smirked and shook her head. “No. It’s by an American band called Nine Inch Nails.”  
  
I tilted my head at her as she spoke, one, surprised that she liked the song enough to memorize how to play it, and two, stunned that someone would name their musical group Nine Inch Nails. However, we’re talking about something other than the end of the world, and though it seems like a pointless conversation, at this point, it’s one I’m willing to prolong. “What’s it called?”  
  
“Hurt.”  
  
“Is it your favorite?” She shrugged and I wonder why she’s suddenly being so shy. “Why don’t you play it again?”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
She hesitated only a moment before she turned back to the keys and began to play the slow and methodical piece, lulling me nearly to sleep. It’s haunting and beautiful and almost sets the perfect background for the destroyed world and our role in it.  
  
And it’s as I watch her that I realize how I’m already too far gone to actually get out. Her face is turned so I only see her profile and with the light from the candles flickering in the room she looks beautiful. We’re both completely filthy, haven’t seen a good shower in nearly a year. But I’ve never thought her to be more lovely than in that moment, lost in playing this haunting melody.  
  
I force myself to turn away, wanting to ignore these burgeoning feelings that are stirring within me. Nothing good could come from this. In fact, disaster would follow in its wake and we’re already in a world where only the bad seems to come to light. I won’t act on this. I’ll put it off forever.  
  
But for now, I’ll enjoy the serenity in her playing.  
  
*~*


End file.
